TMCnet Feature

Trio Presents at StartupCamp9

A handful of startups presented their ideas and business cases at StartupCamp9 Tuesday evening, following which a panel of judges and the ITEXPO audience asked questions and offered input.

First at bat was ONKOL, represented by CEO Erich Jacobs. The Milwaukee-based IoT player, founded in February 2013, offers a device it says is so simple even grandma can use it.

This IoT Hub leverages data collected by devices such as blood pressure monitors and telephones (to see who’s calling, so grandma doesn’t get scammed) already used by the home-based elderly, and delivers it to whomever it is configured to send it to. That could be family, friends, health care providers, and/or insurers. The solution can be purchased by a family member, shipped to the elderly person, who simply plugs in the hub, which can then be configured remotely by a family member or other party.

Field units of the IoT Hub are out now, production is planned for early 2015, and the company is seeking $5 million in a B funding round to ramp its production, do sales and marketing, and aid with recruitment of a peripheral ecosystem.

Next up at StartupCamp9 was Next Caller.

This company has built what it calls the world’s most accurate caller ID database, which supplies call center agents with a variety of caller profile information, including caller phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter handles, and more. The profile follows callers even when they are transferred between agents. And it is integrated both with homegrown and popular CRM and other back office systems.

Next Caller has existing partnerships with 8x8, Nextiva, Vertical, and Zendesk, which it says gives it access to lots of users. And, unlike competing solutions, Next Caller says its solution – which costs about 10 cents a call – has a caller match rate above 75 percent, while it says competitors are more in the 25 percent range.

The final presenter was an outfit called helloMD that aims to bring some of the top doctors in the U.S. together with the most affluent people on the globe, starting with rich folks in China.

CEO Mark Hadfield says this gives wealthy folks that may not have access to the kind of medical they want where they are to get top-drawer care, and it meets the needs of top-flight doctors, many of whom are frustrated with the rising overhead, low reimbursement, and regulatory red tape.

The winner of StartupCamp9 was not announced as of the conclusion of the event, but should be revealed shortly.